If you don’t get the grades you need for university, it’s not the end of the
world, says Caitlin O'Mara, who turned to Clearing to find a place on
Results Day

Caitlin O'Mara, a third year student in criminology and sociology at Sheffield Hallam University, tells us why Clearing was such a success for her.

I had to go through Clearing because I didn’t get my grades to get into the University of Liverpool. I got a C in one of my subjects, when I had to get a B, so I didn’t get into my first choice.

However, it was then that I decided I didn’t want to go to my insurance choice either. I’d not researched it enough and I just decided ‘I’m not going.’

Results Day was, therefore, quite stressful because I didn’t know who I needed to speak to at Manchester Met - my insurance choice. When I originally spoke to them they told me it was going to take ten days to release me. I genuinely thought that I wasn’t going to get a place at university.

Because of the way the Ucas system works, I couldn’t apply for anything else until they had released me, so I asked them to release me early.

In the end I was actually released the following day. By that point I had already spoken to Sheffield Hallam, so it was all sorted.

I had previously had a go at calling around universities before I had my Clearing number. But I wasn’t able to apply. Hallam were really helpful though and said they would try and hold a place, but there was no guarantee until I got my Clearing number.

I spent two days constantly on the phone and it was hard work. I had my parents sitting there and staring at me while I was speaking to people. It was a long two days. However, having someone there to say ‘It’s OK, just pick up the phone and call someone else’ was good.

When I called the universities they wanted to know what kind of grades I had got and why I was going through Clearing – which, for me, was simply because I had done the work, but it hadn’t been good enough on the day.

I hadn’t even thought about Clearing before Results Day. There was almost a taboo around it. Nobody wants to go through clearing and I can understand that, because it was a stressful experience.

You start asking yourself whether you’re going to get a place at university that year, or even if you will ever get a place at university. It’s worrying, but actually, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I’m 110 per cent glad I did it now. I could have sat there and got upset and said ‘I’m not going to university’. But I’m really glad that I didn’t.

If you don’t get the grades you need, it’s not the end of the world. You still have so many options available to you and even though it’s hard being rejected from somewhere, there are still universities and courses with places available.

I don’t think the stigma attached to Clearing is as bad as it once was. I think it is getting better. After applying, I went to the Clearing open day at Hallam and that was really helpful.

It was also really easy sorting out and updating student finance. It was all pretty easy in the end"